Note: John Walley is Chairman and a Director of ProActive Software Ltd, developers of the leading project management software www.proworkflow.com. John is involved with strategic planning and governance.
“A little while ago Julian asked me a question that ended up in this blog – not that I am one to blog. You will see from the PWF website I am on the high side of fifty and not “techie” in the “Twitter” sense of the word. However at a functional level I was using email regularly in the early 90’s and I get nostalgic about DOS (in the operating system sense).
Anyhow out of the blue or maybe after a session of me wondering out loud about the utility of channels like Twitter, the following question from Julian hit my inbox.”
The ProWorkflow solution – www.proworkflow.com is a web based project management solution developed in New Zealand by a tight virtual team. Our servers are in California, the CTO (Founder) in New Plymouth, CEO (Founder) in Rural Christchurch with some staff, and a top developer in Fiji! We’re a tight team and we have focused on process automation so our costs grow slower than sales – what we call a low inertia business.
From day one, we set out to build a global business founded on our low inertia business model. We’ve never just been NZ focussed, it is as easy to reach Los Angeles, London or Levin so why not?
We’ve worked hard to setup automation for trials, sales, support, billing, licensing, client account maintenance and support; leaving our staff free to really talk to customers. The model has run in profit from day one and the organic growth has allowed us to invest revenue back into the business to support top class infrastructure to support our SaaS application.
Continue reading about How is ProWorkflow is doing in the current economic climate?
I’ve just read a brilliant post talking about how hard it is to actually run a startup and the stresses and challenges we all face. This is one of the most candid posts I’ve read on the topic. I know for us it’s been a long hard slog and there’s still a way to go. Every day is a battle to some degree, but a battle worth fighting.
Whether it’s hard customers, lack of sales, server trouble, cash flow or staff, being in business is all about knocking over obstacles and pushing forward when there’s many reasons not to. The reward comes down the track – not on day 1.
Firstly, understand that whilst you can control your business to some degree, you can’t control the general market atmosphere. Up’s, downs, good times & recessions are all just a normal part of the swings and roundabouts of business. In the ‘old days’ I used to have a small design business that was affected by market conditions. In the down times, I would stress, panic, chase work and generally lose focus.
After 5-10 years of similar trends of up and downtime, it became apparent that no matter how much I fought, the quiet patches still occurred and revenue dropped. On the flipside, I found during the busy, more positive times that business was good, and revenue flowed. It was also during these busy times that the busyness hilighted the need for good systems and processes. Trouble was though that I had no time to put any new processes and systems in place. I was too busy!
It tome some years to recognize that these periods were actually market trends and not just a result of bad business effort. Look around and talk to business people today and you’ll find that nearly all businesses are in the same economic condition. Almost all are noticing the same patterns, so it’s not just you – we’re in a bad trend.
Here are some simple tips you should consider to help your business run smoother in tough times…
Continue reading about Is your world going quiet? Don’t panic – here’s some ideas…
It’s fairly easy. Talk, Blog, Syndicate, SEO, Tweet, and build a Solid Product. Then look after users and they’ll become evangelists.
